two things i read and marked recently about how i want my home to feel...

"This house told more about Mrs. Parker than words ever could. Here were beautiful things . . . Beautiful things were here to be used.

In the midst of this loveliness there was comfort . . . People lived here and liked it.

Mary sensed that this pleasant atmosphere was not because of the lovely things in the house but because of Mrs. Parker herself. She understood now what Mrs. Parker gave [her husband] . . . how she surrounded her husband in his home with all the things in which he could rejoice. She realized now that Mrs. Parker was not just an older girl, for all her unquenchable youthfulness. She was a woman who understood and delighted in the task that was hers."

--Mildred Foulke Meese, Star Light, Star Bright (1940)

feel free to use the words “unquenchable youthfulness” in all of your descriptions of me.

“She (Angela Thomas) described how she prays every day for the Spirit of God to lay across her house. And she prays her kids will feel it. She prays they feel the Spirit of God when they eat their cereal and when they blow dry their hair and they kick their shoes underneath their bed and when they hang out as a family.

She prays the Spirit of God laying on top of them will become their normal and what feels right. That way if they leave home and start sticking their toes outside the will of God it will feel so wrong, they will just have to run back to Him.

I love that. I want my kids to crave the covering of God as well. So, I've started praying for the Spirit of God to lay across my house each day too.”

with two teenagers in this home we need the Spirit of God laying on top of this place more than ever. we all need His restraining power over my tongue, His Words to fill my heart and my mouth, and His steadfast love pouring through my actions. so if you come over to visit our home, let me know if you feel a certain weight as the Spirit of God lays across the house.

**** SHAMELESS PLUG COMING UP HERE******** thank goodness we have a new roof (put on last year by my brother max of heritage roofing... because if you are pray for the Holy Spirit to lay across your house you should definitely have a reasonably secure roof)...

i love a shameless plug.

here is another one. matt chandler of the village church. find him on itunes and download and listen to him preach. and by preach i mean “say everything that lea really needs to hear”.

here he is on youtube with my other b.f.f. johnny piper. i am not sure why i wasn’t asked to this little party. my invitation must have been lost in the mail. right, johnny?

or find the sermons here and listen to the entire two years that he preached through the book of luke. i have listened to most of luke and it has sharpened my faith and made me see God more clearly. and that is a good thing. always. in all ways.